michael crowly the deputy washington bureau chief of "time" magazine. michael, let's start with this emerging compromise but i think the big piece of it sort of if you're a democrat, the big piece of this potentially is social security. this is at the heart of new deal and the safety net and the heart of the proud democratic party and obama looking at here is something called chain cpi. that basically means changing the cost of living formula for social security in a less generous way and cost the average beneficiaries more and more money the longer on social security and basically a benefit cut and a small but regressive tax increase because it would affect the income cutoffs for tax brackets. it strikes me that there could be real problems here for obama in terms of selling it to democrats in congress although i heard nancy pelosi today didn't seem too cool toward it at all. where do you think this stands with democrats right now, this social security idea? >> well, don't like it for the reasons that you say, and it is a regressive way of cutting bene